Into Your 90′s!

Did you ever wonder what it will be like to be in your 90’s? It’s not that it’s always on my mind, but I am fortunate enough to know many wonderful 90 something’s! My gramma was with us til 102, so we had four generations of women, my gram, my mom, my daughter and me. Gramma had quite the 100th birthday bash and she cooked up a storm in the kitchen until she was 99!

The real focus for me is on quality each day. Many of my customers make me laugh when they talk about how things start going at 40, you know, the aches and pains, the vision, etc. My gram started talking about those things in her 90’s, which is true for this time of life. Granted, sometimes illnesses come in at earlier ages, don’t I know it. Viral encepleytis at 2, including a long hospital stay and no promise of living through it, numerous childhood flues, thyroid disease at 15, scarlet fever in my 20’s and a bout with severe stress induced rhemetoid arthritis, etc. I learned how to take better care of myself now and count on the quality of each day and sincerely enjoy good health! With proper lifestyle care and diet and nourishment of body and soul, don’t expect the aches and pains til 90! Louise, age 94, drove a white thunderbird, why not, she says. “The funny thing is though, when the young people pull up next to me, they look over and see this old lady!” She had such a marvelous contagious and deep laugh. Mr. Swift, 96, drove a fun jeep and used to tell me “You kids today don’t know how to eat right, like my wife, she doesn’t eat right, and she had better start eating right.” He was a farmer in Colorado all his life and I asked him what brought him to Chicago…..a girl he said. I smiled at his delight and asked him when and he said, “Oh, about 7 years ago! She’s 87.” He used to say, “Margaret, it’s a solid pleasure to talk with you.” He blessed me with a copy of his beautiful memoirs.

There’s the 90 something year old man who came in the store to buy milk chocolate almost every day. Last week he came in to tell me goodbye, he’s going back to England, and he’ll see me next spring. What an absolutely delightful man! He told stories of his “darling wife” and his handicapped daughter, and how good things just come his way. He said he remodeled his home in England while he was here. Would you know, he said, my daughter’s friend from Australia came to England and needed a place to stay, so she stayed at my home during the remodeling. She is a designer and architect, and directed the whole construction project! He smiles and laughs all the time and told me, “well, sure I’m going to die, but who knows when, so I better enjoy myself!”

Let’s enjoy the richness and the gifts of each day, even the illnesses that may come our way, let’s make peace with them and see them as a sign to ourselves. Maybe we need to slow down, maybe we need some extra loving care, maybe we need to tweak our diets. I just went to a headache seminar with Pam Gross at Samadhi Yoga Studio in Glenview. The attendees, including me, deal with headaches, sometimes days long, despite our best efforts. Pam explained many tips for relief and prevention of headaches, like doing yoga or slowing down and lightening up your calendar. One teacher asked her to actually love her headaches. I’m still working on that one, but I tried it the other day, realized it was a sign to slow down, and the headache went away faster!